Senator John McCain accepted the Republican party’s nomination this evening, delivering a speech almost entirely out of place among Republicans for its near total lack of pettiness and hate and its expressing actual humility, making all of us wonder, once again, which side might ultimately receive the inevitable “pay-back” that will be the defining sentiment of any potential John McCain Administration should such come to pass. Governor Palin’s speech last night, written as it was by Rove’s political team for any generic vice-presidential candidate, contained the usual red-meat falsehoods, hatred and incoherence we’ve come to expect from Republicans of the...

Another day, another Sarah Palin scandalette… today: Governor Palin attended a church service where David Brickner, the founder of “Jews for Jesus,” a group that Jews certainly regard as at a minimum crackpot (some believe it is a hate-group) was the guest speaker, and during his talk, he suggested that Israeli Jews were suffering from Palestinian terrorist attacks in punishment for their failure to accept Jesus as their savior. For those wondering, the time frame is around two weeks ago, during the period, one would think, that she was being vetted for consideration for the vice-presidential nomination. Most people won’t...

Another day, another Sarah Palin related scandal, today evidently the good old National Enquirer‘s reporting that Palin had an affair with her husband’s business partner. All of this is, of course, infinitely more important than, say, the break-off of the giant Markham ice shelf in Northern Canada (around the size of Manhattan)… probably as a result of human-caused climate change, which Sen. McCain used to believe in until he secured his party’s nomination. None of this, of course, is as important as Sarah P.’s (1) unwed teenage daughter, and (2) possible own affair. BTW, there is relevance to this in...

And so, I listen to Governor Sarah Palin’s speech, and try to live-blog this one, such as it is. We’re starting to hear about the family… Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper… Track on his way to Iraq, let’s not talk about the girls, and young Trig the baby boy. No, let’s not talk about the girls. No. Let’s not. Well, I guess there’s the bio-part. Soon, policy and attack, from the candidate for national office with the least quantitative experience in a serious position of any candidate for high national office that anyone I know can remember (Edwards and Dubya each...

Good old Rudy 91u1iani addresses the Fascist Party Republican Party convention tonight, on the attack, as I listen to him as I sort of live-blog it. The mantra, of course, is “Obama has never run anything.” Obama is, sayeth Rudy, “the least experienced candidate”… “never led anything, nada”. Naturally, the only way to overlook the fact that Sarah Palin has even less experience is to praise her experience as mayor of a town around 1/1000 the size of NYC (Rudy’s bailiwick). Anyway, poor Barack, it seems, never had the opportunity to order the police to brutalize citizens, or to try...

Again with the Simon & Garfunkel titles, TD, even if they are downright mean? This is especially so in the context of 17-year old Bristol Palin’s “decision” to bear the child (for which she is now 5-months pregnant)… a decision noted by Rob Farley of Lawyers, Guns & Money that her mother Sarah Palin and her running mate John McCain would prefer be made by the state, rather than by the Bristol Palins of our country. Coupled with the politically conveeeenient choice of Bush and Cheney (who McCain would already like to disown as it is) to skip out on...

And so as we ponder Sen. Obama’s choice of Senator Joseph Biden, and Sen. McCain’s choice of Governor Sarah Palin as their party’s prospective Vice-President, consider, from our friend Stephen Truitt, what you hear in this NPR audio segment on the first man known as “The Veep,” a term coined by then-eleven-year-old Steve in honor of his grandfather, Alben Barkley, thirty-fifth Vice President of the United States. Listen through without crying: I dare you.

Yes, that too is an S & G title; those guys were good. And the occasion fits perfectly for the utterly brilliant (I can’t exaggerate on its brilliance) choice of 44-year old Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate. With this one move, McCain has solved his problems with the Limbaugh contingent, the religious right, and the corporate contingents of the Republican base, quite possibly made a huge inroad in independent voters, and quite possibly, if there is any lingering resentment re: Obama’s edging out Hillary for the number one chair, for those who want a woman in...

How good is it that Simon & Garfunkel named a song with that title, just as I pondered what to call a post about Hillary’s too-long-awaited speech designed [to tepidly be] praising of Obama, rather than [to culpably be caught] burying him? Too good. But I’ll take it. It sounds from her speech, that did contain the compulsory elements of Obama-Biden-praise, like, well, that… she’s still running… the one thing she kind of needed not to do. Oh well. There’s no “I” in team, Hillary Clinton (though there are, of course, at least two i’s in…. Hillary Clinton… and I...

Well, it’s been four years already, so it’s time for a page one story in the Grey Lady that features good old political blogs and their presence at national conventions, particularly the Democratic Convention, as blogs are no longer just “hip” and “cutting edge” but are now arguably legitimate power players. Insofar as the most-read blogs now have daily readerships larger than all but a few newspapers, this presence of political blogs on the big stage is inevitable: not to do so would be to exclude key demographics from access to information and perspective, and of course, to a key...